


Places you've been

by AnonOCreeper



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonOCreeper/pseuds/AnonOCreeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All that happened to you was the move. Just one house to another, no big deal, right? But then strange people start showing up, and you're warned to keep away from your old house and the man who sold it. </p>
<p>"Jack Noir can be dangerous to those who get in his way."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Houses and homes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cawfee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cawfee/gifts).



> Okay, so I know OC fics can be boring if it's not your OC who it is being written about. So I would just like to say that I and my companion on this account would be happy to write about your OC, just leave a description and an idea of what you want ((i.e ship)) in the comments! 
> 
> Now I know I'm a bit cocky, but surely SOMEONE wants a fic written for them... right?

You sat in your house, a cool breeze from the air conditioning wafting past you and raising goose bumps on your legs. It was so hot outside, but unpleasantly cool indoors. Always the problem, but you never seemed to be able to muster the effort to stand up and turn down the AC.

You never stood up on a Saturday, not unless you needed to. Saturday was the one day you had to yourself, to rest, to relax, to catch up on the soap operas or science lectures you’d missed during the week. You were new to the school, only moved in a few weeks ago, in fact. And between catching up on lessons, making new friends and trying to get into extracurricular activities, life was hectic.

So Saturdays were like a sweet relief from reality.

Except for today. You were restless today, and as you looked over your garden to the asphalt street, all but steaming in the heat, you decided you needed to get out. Get out of the house, out of this old worn chair you’d brought from your last home across town. That place would always be ‘home’ to you, this place was just house. But the phone rang, rousing you from your drifting thoughts, and you reached as far as you could, seeing if you could pick up the phone without reaching it. Well, that didn’t work, so you tried using the force, focusing in on the air particles or whatever around the phone, motioning for it to float over to you and…

It did jack shit.

So you stood up, lunging for the phone and just catching it before it went to voicemail.

“Hey.” You said into the phones, collapsing onto your chair again.

“Don’t you ‘hey’ me, it is ‘hello’. Hello, or good day, is what a proper lady says.”

Oh. Obviously, it was your mother.

“Sorry, I meant to say good day. Good day, mother.”

“Mariya, are you still in the house?”

“Yes, mother, I am.” You rolled your eyes. You were using the landline what did she expect? You to be shopping for groceries?

“Well then get outside, its lovely out.” And with that you heard the click and the droning beep telling you she had hung up.

Lovely woman, your mother.

But, regardless, you were out the door and into the blistering heat within a few minutes. That house was practically suffocating you anyways, you tried to tell yourself. But really it just made you miss your childhood home, and before you knew it you were treading familiar streets until you were outside your old house. To be fair, it was a pretty old place, red shingles sliding off the roof, chipping brickwork and windows that had been broken and replaced countless times.

But you had grown up in it, and it had so many little places to hide in that you used to go whenever you didn’t want to do anything. And your stupid new house didn’t have that, it was just a house, no secret floorboards that lifted up or pieces of the railing that could come unhinged and get the best reaction from the cat.

Just a house.

“What are you doing?” A rough, nervous voice came from behind you, and you jumped, letting out a small squeak and turning to see a boy, probably a year or two older than you, with long black hair, a forehead slick with sweat and countless muscles. He was wearing square sunglasses with cracks running down them, a black tank top and shorts. He looked anxious, even though he could probably kill you with the least possible effort.

“Oh, sorry, I used to live here.” You stuck your hand out ramrod straight, putting on your widest smile and hoping he wasn’t mad at you. “I’m Mariya Adamos.”

He cautiously took your hand, shaking it with a grip that made you wince. “I’m Equius.”

You gave him a weird look. “Equius? That’s an interesting name.”

“Equius Zahak, and I suppose it is.” He shrugged. “I don’t see how it matters.” You supposed it didn’t matter, and you kicked idly at a pebble on the sidewalk. You should get going, you supposed.

“So you used to live here?” He said, breaking the silence.

“Yes, only a few weeks ago, in fact.”

“The person who helped you sell your house, did he have black hair and a scar? Over one of his eyes?” You could feel him looking at you, and you narrowed your eyes.

“How did you know that?”

“You really shouldn’t go back in that house, or anywhere near that man again.” He said simply. “Jack Noir can be dangerous to those who get in his way.”

“Wait, you can’t tell me what to do, I will go back into my old house if I want to and-”

He held up a hand to cut you off. “Don’t go in there, okay? Just don’t do it, you wouldn’t like seeing what your house has become.”

And then he turned and walked away. You watched him walk around the corner, hands in pockets, not looking back, and you wondered what he could have possibly meant. He gave you a fairly intense warning, and he seemed kind of… scared despite his strength.

But you just shrugged it off and walked up the path towards your house. The door was unlocked, and a few flakes of rust chipped off and fluttered to the ground as you turned the knob. You shivered as a cool wind blew through your hair. Strange, you thought as you stepped onto the plush carpet in the front hall, you never remembered it this cold before.

And then the door banged shut behind you, causing you to jump. You tried the knob, but it was jammed. Damn, you guessed you’d just have to walk to the back door. Not like it was far, but your empty house was creeping you out and…

And you noticed a soft green glow coming from a room around the corner, and your heart jumped up to your throat. That had never been there before; in fact you’d never seen such a steady, pulsing green light.

You needed to pass the light to get to the door, and as you slowly, quietly crept along the hallway, reaching the end of the hall, you peered around the corner to see something that had a name floating somewhere in the back of your mind.

_Spirograph_.

And you remembered it, from something that had happened a long, long time ago to you and eleven other people- wait, no, not people. Trolls, you were sure of it. And then something came, what was it? Oh right, the Scratch. You weren’t sure what that was but it sounded menacing. And then you were reaching towards the Spirograph, desperately trying to find the memories again. Everything was coming back so fast and it hurt so much. You were vaguely aware of Equius behind you, shouting for you to stop, but then your hand touched the Spirograph and a bolt of the purest cold you’d ever felt ran through your fingers and coursed through your body, and then there was nothing but black.


	2. Divest and Abandonment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to right, beccy. I'm lazy as fuck -_-

Your name is Mariya Adamos, and you don’t know where you are. You’re vaguely aware of a Spirograph behind you, pulsing and glowing, but you felt like if you touched it something bad would happen. Like you’d touched it before, and that was why you’re here, and you can’t remember. But you kind of can remember; not how you got here or exactly where you are, but where you used to be. You put your head in your hands, letting out a groan. You had no idea what was happening.

“Mariya?” A rough voice called out your name, and you sat up, looking for the one who called you and taking in your surroundings. You were actually in a very urban area, fountains and brick buildings towering around you, except they were all in various states of disrepair. The voice echoed around you, and a few loose bricks tumbled over, stirring up a cloud of dust. You didn’t know the name of this place, but you didn’t like it either.

“Mariya? Are you there?” The voice called out again. You didn’t know who it was or if they meant you any harm, so you sat completely still, letting the echo die around you. And then you heard the resounding, careful footsteps from around the corner, and you wondered how big the grid of deserted buildings was.

It occurred to you that you should probably not be sitting in plain sight, so you jumped up and threw yourself behind the nearest building, making a ridiculously loud noise and sending a pile of rubble tumbling to the ground. Your leg grazed against a wall as you scrambled out from behind the building, bounding down the humid street. You quickly became out of breath, the sun beating down on your neck and your pursuer never getting farther behind. So you threw yourself into another alley, cutting yourself multiple times on rubble and walls, and then you tucked yourself as small as you could behind a pile of decaying bricks.

“Mariya, come on, I’m not going to hurt you!”

You tried not to laugh. That was just what someone who was trying to hurt you would say. So you inspected your hands, hardly breathing, hoping they would pass by you. And as you peered at your hands, which were an odd color of grey, you suddenly realized your skin shouldn’t look like that. So you tried to rub it off, thinking it was just a thick layer of dust from all the rubble, but it wasn’t working. You just leaned against the wall, trying not to hyperventilate and figure out what was going on. You spat on your hands and tried rubbing them again, but your skin was a permanent grey. You stopped trying to get your skin to return to normal color, you had more important things to deal with, like the footsteps approaching your hiding spot.

“Come on, Mariya, let’s not be ridiculous.” You spotted a patch of red on the wall a few feet away, and let out a small moan. It was your blood, and it was pointing out exactly where you were. You inspected your hands, disgusted that your own blood had betrayed you, when you saw some of your cuts were bleeding purple. You swore, unnecessarily loudly, letting the profanity echo around the buildings and you stood up, no longer afraid of what had to be a dream. And to think that you were so scared.

You laughed, a genuine, good humored laugh that bounced back at you a hundred times, making you feel even better. If something was there, you could fight it. But you needed a weapon. You were thinking something big. Something heavy and deadly, like a mace or a sword. You felt it in your hands, slim, lightweight, and you were hoping for a gun.

It was a pair of daggers, glinting in the sun that reached past the rubble and fitting perfectly into your hands. You clutched them tightly. Not a gun, but you could work with this. Probably.

“I’m warning you, whoever you are, I’ve got a weapon.” You walked out into the middle of the street, daggers in hand and a determined expression. Your black hair against your neck made you sweaty, and the handles of the daggers stung against your cuts, but it didn’t matter. This just had to be a dream, and you were going to go out with a bang. You were expecting a fight, or someone who looked obviously evil, and an all out brawl between newly discovered antagonist and protagonist, but you didn’t get one. You didn’t even get what could have been summed up to a fistfight or toddlers throwing themselves at each other in fits of rage. You didn’t even get the slightest bit of fight.

Because it was just Equius.

Or, you were pretty sure it was Equius, he looked the same except he also had grey skin, and two horns on his head, colored like candy corn. One was shaped like an arrow and the other was broken. He was sweating like crazy, a white towel around his neck that he grabbed to momentarily wipe his forehead. You just stood there, holding the daggers, until you realized your head felt a lot heavier than it should have…

“Holy shit!” You cried, lifting your hands up to feel the sleek, curling horns that were poking out of your head. From what you could tell they curved backwards, almost like a ram’s horns except a lot thinner. You could only guess they were the same color as Equius’s. They sharpened to a point facing down and parting your hair, which was a lot smoother and blacker than you thought it was before. You tested the edge of your horn, thoughts flashing through your head too fast for you to follow, but you knew this was a dream; you knew it was a very long and tedious dream, and you knew you wanted to wake up. Hoping the ‘pinch yourself to wake up’ theory was accurate; you found the point of your horn and pushed the tip of your finger into it until you broke the skin.

It hurt, yes. Not a lot, but it hurt enough that if you were going to wake up you would have. But you didn’t, and now you were kind of concerned. Not the kind of concerned for you to go on a totally emo rampage and start cutting yourself to wake up, but just a… mild level of concern. The kind where you could furrow your brow, let out a thoughtful ‘hmm’ and try to methodically work things out.

You looked up at Equius again, trying to think of some civilized way to ask a question. But you really weren’t patient enough for that, so what tumbled out of your mouth was “Where the fuck are we?”

He seemed slightly taken aback by that, though you weren’t totally sure how, and it took him a moment to answer. When he did, you weren’t sure you understood him either. His voice was a lot rougher than you remembered it, and though you’re pretty sure you’d only heard him speak once before.

“The Land of Divest and Abandonment.”

“What?” He also seemed taken aback at this. You almost laughed. If your mother was with you she’d be screaming at you that it wasn’t ‘what’ it was ‘pardon’. But you didn’t care. He used some fucking long words in that sentence.

“Well… it’s.” He wiped at his face with the towel again. “It’s kind of… fancy words for lost and forgotten.”

“Oh. Well that makes sense.” You looked at the crumbling buildings, rubble strewn streets and dust stirring up little storms in the wind. It definitely seemed lost and forgotten. You wondered if it had ever been safe and sound, in the back of someone’s pocket, or the home to a society, huge and modern. But that really didn’t matter. You weren’t that curious, and you needed to find out a way to get out of here.

You were a spirited, fun loving girl, who most definitely did not belong with the lost and forgotten.

“Or… technically fancy words for stripped of hope and left behind.” He coughed, swiping his forehead with the towel again. “Just if you want to get technical about things.” He looked at the ground, and you swear his face tinted the strangest shade of blue.

“Okay. And how do we get out?” You artfully avoided his awkwardness with sudden supreme social skills you never knew you had. Or, you would have like that to be what happened, but really you just tried to look dramatically into the distance (one hell of a lot of crumbling buildings) as an awkward silence descended.

“I… I think we have to go…” He pointed vaguely into the distance, and you turned around to see what it was. But there was nothing there. Or, at least nothing you could see out of the ordinary. Buildings of decaying stone and red brick, a glaring sun and a few clouds straggling across the sky.

“I can’t see anything.” You said flatly.

“W-well… we should probably wait until it’s darker. Then you can see it?” He wiped his forehead with his towel again, and then motioned for you to follow him. And follow you did, not eager to be out after dark in such a barren landscape. You weren’t exactly afraid of something attacking you, but more just the complete and total blackness and silence. Or maybe not silence, but every scrape of a brick, every small cough echoing a thousand times through the land until it eventually died, falling on deaf ears.

Or rather, no ears.

Equius led you into the nearest building, and you only paused to worry about the danger of entering such an old structure for a moment before you continued inside. The air was thick and old, catching in your throat and the dust keeping you constantly fending off sneezes. An old staircase was in the corner, holes in the roof throwing sunlight onto it. Loose bricks had riddled it with broken boards and a rickety appearance, and you bounded up it as quickly as you could after Equius, just wanting to get away from it. It looked like a very dangerous staircase.

The staircase led to a hallway, which led to another staircase, which in turn led to another hallway. All of them plastered with dust and moth eaten carpeting that probably used to be very plush. Finally he stopped (quite suddenly) and turned into a dark room, with nothing but a tarnished metal ladder that you could only guess led up to the roof. As Equius climbed up the ladder in front of you, you couldn’t help but look at his shorts and let out a low whistle.

“That ass.”

He stopped climbing, pulled open the hatch in the roof and practically threw himself into the sunlight. You paused, wondering if you’d hurt his feelings, but shrugged it off. It didn’t matter, just a way of clearing the air between the two of you. You climbed up the ladder, rust flaking off in your hands and rolled onto the roof. The rock was warm against your back, and Equius was a dark shape hunched over a few feet away. He stood up, and you could have sworn he had some kind of troll erection. So of course you decided to make a joke out of it.

“Equius.” You said gravely, looking at him with one eyebrow raised. “The plan was to give you a boner. And you… got one.” You threw back your head and laughed the kind of laugh that encouraged laughter from others even when the original laugher knew it wasn’t coming.

And that was basically the end of that conversation.

The two of you didn’t talk until long after dark had fallen, when Equius cleared his throat and mumbled something you couldn’t hear.

“What did you say?”

“I... I said turn around.” He muttered.

And turn around you did, looking across the starless night sky empty of light save for one bold, swirling white symbol in the sky. It was the symbol for space, you knew that somehow, and it was huge. Brilliant and bright and impossibly far away.

“We have to go there?”

“Yes.” Equius responded, and then silence fell again, and eventually you drifted to sleep.

It was a sleep riddled with space and Spirographs, horns and grey skin and the kind of dream where no matter how far you walked you just couldn’t get to that store you needed to go to, or get to school on time, the building just stayed on the horizon.

Except this wasn’t any store or school, you were just trying to get home.


	3. The journey there

When you woke up next, the space symbol was invisible against the bright sky and the dark silhouette of Equius was hunched over a few feet away. You studied his back, the muscles and black tank top, his lanky black hair falling over his shoulders. You found yourself walking over to see what he was doing, just out of the need to be closer to him. He made you feel safer. But before you could even say good morning he was on his feet, his horns catching the sunlight and him sweating more than ever. 

“We’re… setting out towards that thing we saw last night. That’s how we’ll get out of here.” The towel around his neck was crisp and white again, and you wondered where he got it. “And hopefully avoid Jack Noir.” 

You sighed. “But Jack’s just a salesman! He didn’t do a thing bad, why are you so wrapped up in all of this?” 

“Jack Noir is much more than a salesman. He put that Spirograph in your house, he probably knows we’re here, and you’d just better pray he doesn’t find us.” He turned away, walking towards the hatch into the building below, but you grabbed his hand, feeling the strangest tingle shoot through your arm and chest and he twisted his hand around, grabbed your wrist and pulled you into him. Your lips pressed unevenly together, the taste of sweat and saliva mingling with the fluttering of your heart. There was a little bit of moaning, a little bit of teeth scraping and then you pulled apart. 

“I’m praying he doesn’t find us alright.” You said, feeling an urge to steer the conversation towards something else if only for a moment just to catch your breath. 

"Well… good.” And then he pulled open the hatch and dropped through silently, and you followed, the humid air of the house punching you in the gut, making your way down the stairs and through the hallways back outside. Equius was waiting for you, and he motioned for you to follow as he climbed over a pile of rubble and into a shady alley. The two of you walked through empty streets and alleyways for a long time, a comfortable silence between you. You felt like things had been patched up since last night and you were glad. 

This were shaping up to be incredibly uneventful, your daggers clutched in your hands, sweating profusely and probably burning under the hot sun and the cuts on your hands slowly healing. When you became tired you stopped and rested, when you were hungry Equius pulled some nutrition bars out of one of his pockets, and when you were thirsty he gave you an ice cold bottle of… 

Milk? 

You’re pretty sure it was milk, and you had no idea how he kept it so cold even in a place like this. And he didn’t seem to be carrying it. A sudden thought floated to the back of your mind of how he probably kept it in his Sylladex, but you shook it aside because it was confusing. 

The streets all looked the same and you were wondering if you’d even be able to tell when you reached the symbol, when something appeared over the rooftops. Just a mound of colorless dirt. But it was giant, and you stared at the huge shadow it cast and how high it stretched into the sky. Equius kept walking towards it, and it wasn’t until you were almost at the foot of it when you realized you were going to climb. 

“We have to go up that thing?” 

“Yes.” He replied, readjusting his sunglasses and starting up the mountain. Well, it wasn’t exactly a mountain but it was pretty damn close. He was a few feet above you before you realized you should start climbing (climbing, again was an exaggeration. You were just walking up a steep hill) and he steadily grew farther ahead of you as your throat became dry and your legs tired. You would sit down, but you wanted to keep up a good appearance around Equius. 

After a long time (much too long in your opinion) Equius reached the top, and it took you a few more minutes to clamber up with him. You lay on your back as Equius stared at a cold, hard, black slab of stone a few feet away. It didn’t seem very special to you, so you kind of ignored it. But after sitting up and taking a look around your heart sank when you figured out this was, in fact, the only thing on top. You almost screamed. 

“We climbed all the way up here for that?” 

“Well… yes.” He coughed and swiped at his forehead with the towel. “This is it. The Space bed.” 

You stared at the rock. That was not a bed. But you were tired, so you went over to it and lay down on the smooth, black surface. It was well warmed from the sun. The space symbol painted on it seemed to be pulsing against your back, but you were so tired from the climb, and you were so warm. You closed your eyes for a moment, a hot breeze blowing over your face and in your hair. 

“So now what?” You asked, and the question seemed to hang in the air for a few moments. “How are we supposed to leave?” 

“I don’t know. I just know this is a God Tier bed, and I think… I think you’re supposed to die.” He trailed off, and the first few words were whispered so quietly you weren’t sure you heard what he said. But part of you knew, and so you just lay there, eyes closed against the sun, breathing long and deep. 

“Can I just have a moment to get ready?” 

“What?” 

“Well before you kill me I need a moment to get ready.” 

“I’m not going to kill you, Mariya.”

You sat up, looking at him with a frown. “But you have to. I need to get out of here. I’m perfectly okay with you doing it, just get it over with. If I need to die I need to die.” 

“I’m not going to kill you.” He said it so flatly that it took you a moment to realize you were the one being ridiculous. But you didn’t care. Home was more important than Equius being stubborn. 

“Fine.” And then you lay down again, the rock warm against the back of your head, eyes squeezed shut against the light and then you honestly wondered if you were going to fall asleep. But you didn’t get a chance to, with a flash of green behind your eyelids and a muffled shout from Equius something stabbed through your chest. You opened your eyes with a gasp, taking in the disappearing being (half man, half dog with a white scar running down his face, a bit like a certain salesman you’d talked to once) and Equius, mid-stride, torn between jumping after Jack and jumping towards you. Your hand came away red and the pain was all but unbearable. 

And then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bleh nothing happened ._.


	4. Breaking and entering

The black didn’t last very long. Not long at all, in fact, and you woke up quite soon afterwards. Equius was still a few feet away, Jack still wasn’t there and you sat up with a yawn. What a crazy dream, you thought as you rubbed your eyes with the back of your hand. You were getting really hot in the sunlight in your black clothing, and you wondered if you could ask Equius if you guys could go back down and find some shade. But then you stopped, because you didn’t remember wearing black clothing before, and you definitely hadn’t been wearing a hood. You looked down at yourself, your tight fitting hood, your black shirt with the space symbol on it and your mid thigh length tight black pants. You weren’t exactly wearing shoes, but tightly wound bandages your feet and calves, stopping an inch or two from your pants. You grinned. 

“Mariya?” Equius turned around and looked at you, the surprise on his face so animated you couldn’t help but laugh. He shook his head, and a smile rippled across his face. “That happened fast.” He said. 

“I’m God Tier now, right? Maid of Space.” You looked down at yourself, trying to remember how exactly you remembered your God Tier title, but it didn’t seem to matter. Remembering was hard, so you opted out of it and just sat there grinning. 

“Yes, Maid of Space is right, I believe. And I’m pretty sure there should be a, um, Spirograph appearing sometime soon.” 

“Cool.” You crossed your legs on the bed, trying to make things move around with your cool space powers or whatever. You couldn’t read minds, or turn invisible, but you did manage to shoot up several feet in the air before bringing yourself back down and pull the glasses off of Equius’s face without touching them. You were surprised, and squeaked with pleasure, watching as the sunglasses shattered and the fragments blew away in the wind. You stopped messing around after that. 

After a few more minutes, which you fidgeted around during, bored, a Spirograph swirled to life in front of you. You jumped up, grinning, and had a leg in it before you stopped to call for Equius. 

“C’mon, we’re finally getting somewhere!” And then the green sucked you in, the burst of cold once again, and you were in the hallway of your home. You breathed in the cool fresh air, and took a step towards the exit, but a dark figure stepped out of the shadows. It was a business man, in a black suit, with black dress pants and a faded green tie. Everything about him was dark, from his hair to his shoes, and he had a pale scar running down the side of his face. The man seemed to shimmer, almost as if he was just a projection, and an image of the Jack Noir you feared took his place for a moment. 

“Mariya.” He had such a soft voice, but you could hear a kind of growl behind it. “This isn’t your house anymore, correct? I do believe it was sold. To me. And you know what they call it when you’re in a house you don’t belong in?” 

You just shook your head, trying not to look as scared as you felt. 

He let out a barking laugh. “Why, my dear, they call it breaking and entering.” 

And then Equius staggered out of the Spirograph behind you, stopping almost immediately and standing up straighter than you knew was possible. You heard him hiss something along the lines of “Noir, we’re so fucked.” And then he launched himself at Jack. 

The business appearance melted away, leaving Jack Noir, half man half dog standing in its place. He snarled, sword materializing in his hand, but he just batted Equius aside like he was nothing. Equius sank to the floor with a moan, and you stared, horrified, expecting Jack to lunge any second. But instead he just stabbed himself with his sword, not even flinching in pain and looked straight at you. 

“I can’t afford to have dead bodies on my property, Ms. Adamos, so I say we should make a compromise.” 

“What makes you think you can bargain with me?” 

He just shook his head. “Okay, listen, I’m not even going to dignify that with a response because I am offering you your god damn life. Why wouldn’t you bargain with me?” 

“What’s the catch?” You knew there had to be a catch. Every good villain had a catch to his offer. 

Jack shrugged. “You forget. Everything. You never come to this house again, because you can’t remember it ever being here. This Spirograph will continue to assist me and only me in the travels between worlds, if I even need it. You, will continue on your life, oblivious but safe.” A grin flickered across his face. “But wait, there’s more. If you accept without a struggle, he’ll be safe too.” He pointed at the unconscious Equius. “If you try to bargain further, you’ll forget everything anyway, but he won’t be included in the deal.” 

You stopped, looking at Equius, looking at Jack, and thinking. It was an obvious choice really. It was like he was telling you that you could have a cake, or you could have a really expensive cake with lots of money the drove a nice car. 

And money and cars were really nice so you just nodded, and Jack nodded back, a small smile and flickering back to his human form. 

“Well then, glad we could avoid that little commotion.” And then he snapped, and you gasped as an intense pain filled your mind and you collapsed. 

When you woke up next you were lying in the middle of the sidewalk, an unfamiliar face of a boy with greasy black hair, deep blue eyes and a fair share of broken teeth above you. He was wearing a black tank top, and had a pristine white towel around his neck that he took off for a moment to wipe his forehead. 

“Are you alright?” He had such a familiar voice. 

“Yes, I’m fine, I think.” You sat up, staring at the unfamiliar neighborhood all around you. How had you gotten here? You felt a cold fear grip you, and you jumped up. “I really, really have to get home. I don’t know where I am.” 

“Okay. I can help you get home, probably. I should go home too.” He rubbed the back of his head and looked around, confused. “But I don’t have a clue where I am.” 

A business man walked out of a house behind you, and with a polite smile asked if you two shouldn’t be running along. You liked him, he seemed trustworthy. So you told him your address, he gave you instructions and you set off with the boy in tow. You were sure he’d find some way home too. 

“By the way, I’m Equius.” He smiled, and you grinned back. 

“My name’s Mariya, nice to meet you.” 

And you were sure the two of you would be great friends.


	5. Epilogue

It had been years since that day, you’d long ago disposed of the weird clothing you’d been wearing, and left that day behind you. Why should you hold on to something you’d forgotten all about? It seemed easier just to let things go, even if it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. 

You and Equius had some great times together, and as your strange ability to move things without touching them and to make things happen to people when you lost control of your emotions spread across the school and you became branded a freak, Equius was pretty much your only friend. He tried to quietly explain to you how he couldn’t be seen with you in public without ruining his chance on the football team, but you shattered his glasses and made his towel unthread itself until it was just a pile of white fabric on the ground. After that he spent a lot more time with you, and though he didn’t end up on the football team he would later tell you he’d gained something much more valuable. 

You.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yea. i'm done and stuff. this is what you get in return for making me a john hood. 
> 
> Celebration.


End file.
